Does Watch Dogs live up to the hype? No. Is Watch Dogs worth the money? Yes and no. Bottom line, if you don't go into this game expecting a GTA V killer, you'll enjoy your purchase.
Despite the drama about the downgrade graphics, the graphics are pretty good even on last gen. Nothing on the level of The Last Of Us or GTA V's detailed resolution but it's good enough to enjoy if you are not a graphics whore.
The gameplay is nothing revolutionary but the hacking mechanics are more fun than you think they would be. I'm not one for being invaded by other gamers but there is fun to be had using your wits tracking down another player trying to hack you or avoid detection from them when you're literally right under their nose, hacking them, watching them run around clueless and frantic trying to find you, lol!
As mentioned by others the driving sucks and is pretty arcadey but nothing you can't get used to over time. Definitely better than GTA IV's driving. There are so many random side missions, criminal activities and things to do, you can easily get sidetracked from the main story which is a good thing.
The gunplay is okay but it's meant to be a backup for hacking imo. You can easily get slaughtered trying to go in guns blazing with a bunch of goons gunning at you from different angles. You cannot shoot while driving or customize vehicles from what I've seen.
Cons I've noticed so far:
A few glitches that may cause you to restart a mission such as enemies getting stuck in a garage door with no button prompt for you to hack the door open to progress further into the mission.
Long loading screens when you die. Checkpoints pick up where you first acquired the mission, not where you actually died.
Some side missions where you have to stop criminals instruct you to subdue the criminal rather than kill them. When these criminals have goons shooting at you while trying to flank you, you can mistakenly kill the target, causing you to instantly fail the mission. Then you have to start the whole mission over from the beginning.
Driving missions where you have to play beat the clock can get pretty annoying
No manual saves except for sleeping in game. Other than that, the game autosaves at checkpoints
Driving is too arcadey
Not much room for going in guns blazing but I guess that's the point of the big focus on hacking and playing stealthy